Royal Netherlands Air Force - Future

Future

  • 85 F-35A Lightning II are expected to replace the F-16 fleet, the number is probably cut to 42 due to rising costs and budget-cuts by the Dutch government. One F-35A has been delivered for the testing program and for training pilots and maintenance crew. This first aircraft is stationed at a base in Florida, USA.
  • 20 NH90 helicopters will replace the former Navy Lynx helicopters. The NH90 helicopters will be stationed at Gilze-Rijen (8 NH-90 Naval Transport version and SAR) and De Kooy (12 NFH-90 anti-submarine warfare).

The Netherlands was the first country to sign up for the Production Sustainment and Follow On Development (PSFD) Phase of the F-35 Lightning II aircraft.

Through the NATO Strategic Airlift Capability, the RNLAF has access to three C-17s.

Read more about this topic:  Royal Netherlands Air Force

Famous quotes containing the word future:

    Self-kindled every atom glows,
    And hints the future which it owes.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak, and as strong; as silly and as wise; as bad and good.
    Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

    The most remarkable aspect of the transition we are living through is not so much the passage from want to affluence as the passage from labor to leisure.... Leisure contains the future, it is the new horizon.... The prospect then is one of unremitting labor to bequeath to future generations a chance of founding a society of leisure that will overcome the demands and compulsions of productive labor so that time may be devoted to creative activities or simply to pleasure and happiness.
    Henri Lefebvre (b. 1901)